For many indigenous and minority communities, ‘development’ brings only destruction –

new global report calls for a new model of resource development ‘with identity’, including practices which respect the rights of indigenous and minority communities.

"The efforts of indigenous peoples to reform the way we all pursue natural resource development could be the key to greater sustainability. The future of natural resource development is our common future, and minorities and indigenous peoples have a right not only to benefit from development, but also to help determine its path."

The scale and severity of the threats to indigenous peoples and minorities have reached new proportions, due to an unprecedented demand for the world’s remaining resources, Minority Rights Group International says in the 2012 edition of its flagship annual report, published today.Natural resource development projects such as logging and dams, oil and mineral extraction and large-scale agriculture have been successful in generating vast revenues across the globe. But at what cost to minorities and indigenous peoples?

In its flagship annual publication, State of the World's Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012, Minority Rights Group International documents hundreds of case studies about marginalized groups who have been adversely affected by exploitation of the resources found on, or under, their ancestral lands. It also considers land rights around the world.

State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 provides concrete evidence of how the generation of vast revenues from logging and dams, oil and mineral extraction, coastal tourism, fish farming, conservation parks and large-scale agriculture, is often at the expense of the rights of indigenous peoples and minorities.